


Fear

by starksborn



Series: Quilson Zombie AU [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 09:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1738931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starksborn/pseuds/starksborn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The quiet moments when Slade’s asleep are the worst. Before, they were always doing something. Whether it was cleaning the weapons or checking the supplies or keeping watch or working out or even just sitting idly with nothing but the sound of the whetstone sliding against the steel of Slade’s swords—there was something. Now, the only company Oliver has is his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear

Slade’s jerked back into reality by white-hot pain. It ebbs from the side of his face, wrapping around his skull and sliding down his neck and spine. It settles somewhere in his chest, gripping his lungs in a vice. He’s faintly aware that he’s screaming and his fist shoots up and out, aiming to push away whatever it is hurting him. Someone grabs his wrists, and he can hear a voice talking to him, attempting to coax him farther back into the world—out of this half-state he’s continually finding himself in. Somewhere between conscious and not, between alive and dead. When he’s not in pain, he’s found it’s a rather pleasant place to be; he’s reluctant to leave it.

Against his better wishes, the fog rolls away from him a little, and he becomes aware that there’s someone crouched in front of him and talking in low, soothing tones. 

_Bill?_   floats through his mind and it takes him a moment to remember he hasn’t seen Bill in months, that it’s someone else covering his ass now. 

"Oliver?" The words come out hoarse and choked, as if he’s forgotten how to talk. 

"Hey," Oliver responds. Slade blinks a little, the motion causing the muscles in his face to flex painfully. "You scared me for a second." 

Slade just grunts and reaches up to put a hand to his face, and Oliver is quick to jerk his arm away. He keeps trying to hold his face, and Ollie’s worried about him touching the injury, worried it’ll make it more infected. 

"I gotta change your bandages," he says. "I know it hurts…we have to."

Slade notices the hitch in the kid’s voice, the pause. The unspoken ‘ _but_ ’. He knows there’s something Oliver isn’t saying and if he had more energy he’d be angry about it. 

"What’s wrong?" he asks. Oliver pauses, unsure of what to say. It’s been three days since they escaped the horde, and Slade’s been incoherent more often than not. The last coherent conversation they had was when Ollie made the suicide run to get them some more medical supplies. It had proven fruitful, and he had more than enough gauze and tape and such to last them for a short while. 

That aside, Slade’s continuing exhaustion and confusion is causing him worry. He keeps trying to make sure the man is hydrated and fed, but every time he tries to get Slade to eat something it comes back up. One such episode caused him to tear the skin around his injuries even more, and that’s the last time Oliver tries to get him to keep down solid food. Since then he’s been giving him sips of water and sports drinks, and some powdered protein shakes he’d found. He’s not sure if they have the same effect, being mixed with water instead of milk, but it’s all they have. 

"Do you know where we are?" Ollie asks. 

"Do  _you_?” Slade retorts. 

Oliver smiles a little at that. He assumes if Slade’s still being a smart-ass, he must be doing okay. Despite this, the discoloration creeping across his nose and forehead is still bothering him. He digs through one of their bags and pulls out a water bottle and a box of ibuprofen.

"Come on, take this," he says, tapping two pills into the palm of his hand. "It’ll keep your fever down."

He helps Slade get the pills down, and Slade leans his head against the wall behind him, closing his eyes.

"Am I turning?" he asks suddenly. There’s a moment of silence before Oliver answers. 

"I…don’t know," he says. He thought at first when his fever went up that he was, and he spends an entire night clutching his pistol and waiting for the telltale signs of turning, dreading the idea of having to put Slade down the way they did Shado and Sara. 

But that was two days ago, and Slade’s still hanging on. He’s weak and dying, maybe, but he doesn’t seem to be turning. 

"I think you have an infection," he says. "From…what happened, and us not having proper equipment the first day. I think your body is fighting like hell to stave it off, but I don’t think it’s the zombie virus." 

"Small miracles, eh?" Slade attempts to smirk a little, but the motion causes too much pain to do so. 

"I’m worried," Oliver admits. "You…your face is…it’s turning green in places, and we don’t have any antibiotics or anything. I’ve got enough stuff to keep it as clean as I can, but I couldn’t find any antibiotics when I went out."

He caps the water bottle and pulls out a box of gauze, leaning forward and sliding a hand behind Slade’s head. 

"Come on," he says. "Let’s get this over with. We’ve still got some Vicodin I can give you later." 

Pulling the old bandages off feels about the same as peeling off a layer of skin. Considering the amount of skin that actually does come off with them, Slade figures there’s not much difference. He grinds his teeth and digs his nails into the concrete floor below him and resists the gut-reaction to punch Oliver in the face. Apparently he’s already done that twice while out of it, and Oliver’s learned how to avoid the blows. 

When it comes time to dab at his face with peroxide and ointment, Oliver’s having to squat over Slade’s lap and use his body weight to keep the man from thrashing too much. Ollie’s knees dig into Slade’s arms, pinning them away from him. He uses one hand to try and hold his head in place, and Slade has the slight thought of wondering when Oliver developed so much grip strength as the kid’s fingers keep a firm hold on his hair. 

"I know, I know," Ollie is saying. He’s trying to work as fast as he can given the circumstances, but Slade’s not making the whole process very easy. At some point his eyes flutter and his guttural protests wind down into small groans, and Ollie’s fairly certain he’s slipped back out of awareness again. He manages to wrap the man’s head and staple it off fairly quickly, and he taps him awake long enough to feed him a couple of pain pills before he’s back out again. 

The quiet moments when Slade’s asleep are the worst. Before, they were always doing something. Whether it was cleaning the weapons or checking the supplies or keeping watch or working out or even just sitting idly with nothing but the sound of the whetstone sliding against the steel of Slade’s swords—there was  _something_. Now, the only company Oliver has is his own. 

He’s found he doesn’t much care for it. 

The days are taking a toll on him. He hasn’t slept much since he pulled Slade out of the mass of bodies, simply because he can’t afford to. Someone has to keep watch over them, and now there’s no one else to do it. Any time he does manage to doze off, the slightest noise is waking him up with fits and starts. He’s having trouble remembering to eat, and when he does he can’t bother to taste whatever it is he’s consuming. It all tastes and smells like blood to him anyway.

He’s camped them out under a bridge, miles away from what they’d been using for a camp in the forest when the horde hit them. There’s a freeway above and in front of them, high up on a hill blocked off by a ten foot tall fence. Their backs are to a grated off drain pipe, and any zombies can only approach from the front. If Oliver’s grateful for one thing, it’s only having one position to watch. The fence above them serves for good protection, and every so often he marches up and down it, using one of Slade’s swords to pick off any zombies lingering within range. It’s something to do, at least. Something to focus on. When he gets bored of that, he starts using them as target practice with Shado’s bow. He starts off close to the fence, and continually backs up farther and farther, only going up to it when it’s time to retrieve his arrows. 

Eventually he’s able to stay in his spot next to Slade and pop off arrows from afar, hitting the zombies in the head. He mixes things up a little, aiming for different spots. Eye sockets, foreheads, cheeks. He does this repeatedly throughout the day, using all the arrows and retrieving them and firing again. 

Shoot, retrieve, shoot.

Shoot, retrieve, shoot, tend to Slade’ face, shoot, retrieve, shoot.

Somehow it seems to only make the days go by slower, the long stretches between the small conversations with Slade more unbearable. It’s during the night in one of these lapses in activity when Oliver’s body finally gives up on him. He leans back to sleep for a few hours, and goes into the deepest sleep he’s had since this whole mess began. He’s so out he doesn’t even notice when Slade wakes up on his own, coming out of the pain and Vicodin induced haze with a flutter rather than a fight. 

It’s quiet, is the first thing he notices. There’s a slight breeze, and it carries with it the ever-present smell of rotting corpses.

His head is pounding, but it’s nothing like before. A constant throbbing and a pulsing sting that bites a little too hard if his face moves too much. Oliver’s sitting next to him on his left, curled up with his head resting on his arms. He’s breathing deeply and steadily, and Slade decides to leave him be for now. It takes him a moment to stumble to his feet, and he leans against the wall for support when he does. His knees pop from the motion and his legs feel weak and tingly. How long has he just been sitting? He’s not even sure how many days ago it was he got swept up with the horde. 

He touches the hurt side of his face gingerly, fingers brushing against the bandages wrapped around his head. He applies slight pressure in places, testing how much he can do before it starts to hurt. Standing up has made him realize how hungry he is, and he feels around in the dark for their belongings. He finds the flashlight and clicks it on, squinting in the sudden light as he paws through the bag for something to eat. His brain is thinking up many wonderful things— pizza and burgers and maybe even a steak— and he manages to find a pack of pop tarts and some saltine crackers. 

He wonders if this is all they have as he sits back down and tears into the crackers, hoping that Oliver isn’t stupid enough to let their supplies dwindle so low. Leave the kid alone for ten minutes, and look what happens. He glances in Ollie’s direction and sighs a little, a short burst of air through his nostrils. The kid’s clearly completely worn out, and Slade can’t say he blames him. He definitely owes him for this. It’s not exactly a comforting thought, being indebted to someone, so he pushes it aside for now in favor of focusing on other things.

He starts planning what to do come day light, starts planning to collect their gear and get back on the road. He’s still not sure where to exactly, but just sitting around doesn’t seem like a viable idea any more. Not after being caught in two hordes in such a short span of time. In hind sight, they should have left camp after burying Shado and Sara. It was stupid to think another horde wouldn’t come through. Stupid and naive, and he knows he has no one to blame for that but himself. 

He pushes that thought away as well. Dwelling on the past isn’t going to fix anything, and it sure as shit isn’t going to keep them both alive. He knows now what  _not_  to do in the future, and he tries to console himself with that alone. 

Daylight comes sooner than expected, but is a welcome sight. He makes quick work of going through their items and loading them into the jeep. Their food stores aren’t as low as he’d thought, but low enough that he decides that’s the first thing they’ll do today. The jeep is nearing empty on gas, so he adds that to the list as well.

He lets Oliver have another hour of sleep before waking him up, walking over and prodding him with the toe of his boot. 

"Hey, kid," he says. Oliver wakes with a start, mumbling something he can’t understand and stares up with confused eyes, blinking in the sunlight. 

"Slade?" he asks. "What…what are you doing up?" 

"I feel better," Slade says. "We need to get moving." 

"Already?" Oliver stumbles to his feet, yawning a little despite himself. "Do you think you should—" 

"Yes," Slade interjects. "We need food and gas, let’s go." 

He doesn’t wait for Oliver to say anything else and instead simply slides into the passenger side of the jeep. When Oliver doesn’t follow immediately, Slade whistles and sticks an arm out the side, waving him on. Ollie glances around him, noticing all their things already packed and trudges over to the vehicle. 

"You look a little better," he says, looking over at Slade. Slade shrugs in response, tossing the keys into Ollie’s lap. 

"Figure you better drive," he says. He makes a motion to the bandages on his face. "Considering." 

Oliver starts the jeep without comment and pulls it around and up the embankment to the road. When they hit the pavement he lets it roll down the bridge a ways, looking around for any signs of movement. It seems strangely empty, but he decides not to question it. 

"Are you sure you want to start moving?" he asks. Slade rolls his visible eye, and Oliver’s amazed that the man falls right back into being annoyed and pissy after being incoherent for nearly a week. 

"Would you just  _drive?_ " Slade snaps. 

Oliver shakes his head a little, smirking with amusement and gives the jeep some gas. It’s been a stressful few weeks, but with Slade perking back up and acting more like himself, he allows himself to think that maybe things will start looking up for them now. 

For a while, at least. 


End file.
